Farm Report: November 2007
by Kelle Carter

Now is my personal favorite time on the farm—the autumn harvest season. The cottonwood leaves are yellowing and slowly falling to the ground, the fields are bright green with cover crops, and the air is crisp and cool. It is a somewhat quiet time here; the interns have left for the season to pursue other interests and seed is slowly arriving from our seed farmers for cleaning. We are lucky to have one intern stick around for the winter seed cleaning season. Evan Snow will be helping Emily Skelton in the seed warehouse this coming winter. This is also the time of year that we work on creating our upcoming catalog. We are currently in the final editing stage of this process—look for our 2008 catalog in your mailbox sometime after Christmas.

We were extremely lucky to have Scott and Arina Pittman of the Permaculture Institute teach a course on our farm during the first week of October. The course, "Permaculture for Sustainable Farming and Gardening," lasted five days and was attended by 20 people from all parts of the US. The course focused on permaculture ethics and the principles of natural systems in relation to design, and relied upon our Research Farm as a hands-on model. Activities included plant division in the perennial garden, an introduction to topbar beekeeping with guest lecturer Les Crowder, planting and sheet mulching of the pollination hedge, and planting over 40 trees and shrubs to create a new windbreak on the farm.

Due to the enormous success of the course, we plan on offering three similar classes next year. The classes are currently planned for May, July and September, and add up to thirteen full days of class that will reward the attendee of all sessions a certification in Permaculture Design. Be sure to look on our website for dates and more information.

Other news on the farm includes the building of a permanent straw bale chicken shed. Evan has designed a wonderful building that is composed of six beams and a roof. The walls will be built using straw bales that can be removed at the end of the winter season, making the building a perfect shade house. There will be two rooms separated by a wall of bales: a brooding room and a nesting room. Other benefits of this clever design include two separate fenced-in fields to create a rotational grazing area for the birds. We hope to increase our current flock of twenty-two this spring and possibly get some turkeys as well.

Poultry is a must for any farming or gardening operation, large or small. We recently moved our portable chicken tractor and fence to encompass a worn-out patch of lettuce. The chickens have cleared a 100 foot by 40 foot field in less than four days, reducing our work, and eliminating the compaction usually induced by the tractor during tilling. The chickens have turned the bolted lettuce into healthy eggs with deep orange yolks. After we move the chickens into their newly finished house, we can then plant cover crops on the cleared soil.

I hope the harvest season is filling you and your loved ones with the bounty of the season. Enjoy this beautiful time of year.

Be Well,
Kelle Carter
Field Manager

Photo Captions: (1) Mulching the hedgerow (2) Straw bale chicken shed (3) Chickens feeding on bolted lettuce